August 18, 2023
Bill Lawrence
Cc: Zach Braff, Donald Faison, John C. McGinley, Sarah Chalke, Judy Reyes, Christa Miller, Ken Jenkins, Neil Flynn, Sam Lloyd, the rest of the cast, the entire crew, the writing staff, and anyone I may have left out.
Re: [Scrubs]
Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Braff, & So On:
Someday, I hope to have touched someone with my work, and I hope they tell me about it. If I’m going to hope for such a thing, I think it is only fitting to do the very same for the creators, & filmmakers who have moved me. To that end, I wanted to let you know what a powerful impact your creative work has had on me, when I needed it the most.
Scrubs hasn’t been on the air in almost fifteen years, but I’ll be damned if I don’t look back on those episodes like long, lost friends. In 2004, my mother had gotten very sick, and began a decade-and-a-half battle against very aggressive forms of cancer. I lost my father when I was very young, so the idea of my mother being sick was catastrophic. Truly, I spent the entire time she was battling that god-awful disease waiting for the phone call no one ever wants to get. There were countless hours in waiting rooms, waiting with bated breath for a pair of scrubs to walk through the waiting room door to give news, sore necks from falling asleep on waiting room couches, and hating the taste of coffee because it reminded you of the last time you were trying to keep yourself awake to find out how the surgery went. When someone so close to you is going through such an ordeal, your own mental health becomes secondary, and irrelevant. Depression was just as much of a resident in my home as I was.
I found Scrubs on syndication on Comedy Central and I laughed. I forgot I was capable of laughing sincerely; at that point, I was only smiling, and laughing, to keep my job in customer service, or to keep people from telling me I needed to be strong. Even more incredible about Scrubs were the vulnerable moments, of tears, grief, and acceptance. The halls of Sacred Heart Hospital made the halls of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center less terrifying, made the doctors human again, instead of me seeing them as wraiths who were going to tell me my mother didn’t make it. I still listen to the entirety of the soundtrack to this day—when I’m feeling glad, when I need to be picked up, when I need to let the emotions out, and when I need to soldier on.
If I spent every day waking up to write down how grateful I am for your creative work, it would still never be enough. Such a creative work is surely an opus for all of you, but I wanted you all to know what a substantial impact you’ve had on a human being you’ve never met, how your craft made a very big difference to someone who needed the assist.
May all of you find more joy and success than you’ll ever be prepared for, may you spend the rest of your days enjoying the fruits of your labors, and may all of your names always be held high in the hearts of those who love you.
Sincerely,
-A.P. Miller
Author & Novelist
Reigning Archduke of Mayhem
A.P. Miller 